Noble Group Ltd. said Yusuf Alireza resigned as chief executive officer and announced a plan to sell part of its gas and power unit less than a month after Alireza himself described Noble Americas Energy Solutions as one of the core assets it wanted to keep.
Asian commodities trader Noble Group’s credit-rating has been reduced to junk by Standard & Poor’s and placed on watch for further cuts.
Asia’s top commodity trader exits 2015 in very different shape to how it began the year. Noble Group Ltd. has lost almost two-thirds of its value, with its stock trading near the lowest since 2008, after a year of attacks on its finances by critics including the anonymous Iceberg Research and short-seller Muddy Waters LLC. The latest blow, amid a rout in raw materials, is the cut in its credit rating to junk by Moody’s Investors Service on concerns over its liquidity.
Energy commodities giant Noble Group extended its biggest monthly drop in 16 years after the Singapore bourse issued a warning on the company’s shares amid a slump in commodity prices.
Noble Group Ltd. appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to review how it values some of its assets after criticism of the Asian trading company’s accounting practices. PricewaterhouseCoopers will “conduct an assurance review of Noble’s mark-to-market models, valuations, and governance framework,” Noble said in a statement that also announced the creation an independent board committee that appointed the accounting firm. As of Monday, Noble shares had plunged 41 percent in Singapore since Feb. 16 when a group calling itself Iceberg Research published a first report criticizing the way the company values its investments. Iceberg’s comments have been echoed by short-seller Muddy Waters LLC and others.